Welcome to this week’s look back at the biggest news of the past seven days, and a word of warning before we begin: while it's not specifically Halloween-themed, this week’s newsletter isn’t for the faint of heart.
From Elon Musk finally taking over Twitter, to melting GPU cables and Apple pumping the App Store full of ads, this edition of the Week In Review is a hair-raising experience – if you have any hair, that is. Which I don’t.
I hope you enjoy this installment, even if you do end up reading it between your fingers. Please send me your thoughts via email, and be sure to include NEWSLETTER in the subject line so I don’t miss it.
Next week you’ll be in the capable hands of the similarly follicly-challenged Lance Ulanoff, but until then, enjoy my picks! And Happy Halloween…
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Elon Musk finally has control of Twitter (Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Well, it’s finally happened. After a dramatic, and sometimes rather unedifying, legal fight that ended up having more twists and turns than a bowl of pasta on a fairground ride, Elon Musk has finally purchased Twitter. As the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and the world’s richest person, you’d have thought that if Musk wanted to buy something, then he’d have little trouble doing so, but this purchase has been a rocky one.
After laying down a huge $44 billion for the social media platform, it seemed like Musk then got cold feet, publicly voicing concerns about the number of spam accounts on the platform. He then stated he was pulling out of the deal altogether, which caused Twitter to threaten to sue Musk if he didn’t follow through – which he now has.
Phew. So, the drama’s over, right?
Nope! The first thing Musk did was fire some of Twitter’s top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, some of whom were reportedly escorted out of Twitter’s head office. Musk is also threatening to cull more staff.
The billionaire is a controversial figure, who has made some rather inflammatory remarks on Twitter, which has led some users of the platform to fret about its future. In particular, some worry that Musk’s proclaimed love of free speech could lead to controversial figures who had been kicked off Twitter for breaking its rules being allowed back on (I’m not mentioning any names, but I’m thinking of one individual in particular, whose surname rhymes with ‘bump’).
So, even with the deal now concluded, it looks like this drama is far from over – and my fellow Week in Review compiler Lance Ulanoff is not optimistic. Watch this space…
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The new iPad Pro is Apple's most powerful tablet yet (Future)
The latest iPad Pro has launched, and we’ve got our hands on it. Reading Matt Bolton’s review of the 12.9-inch model, it looks like while it’s not a massive upgrade over the previous Pro, it’s still an impressive-looking device, especially so when paired with the Apple Pencil for use as a digital canvas for artists.
I’ve got a standard iPad from a couple of years back, which I mainly use to read comics on via Kindle Unlimited (I’m currently reading Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series, as I’m concerned that Netflix is gonna Netflix, and cancel its adaptation after just one series) and occasionally to practise the piano, so the full power of the iPad Pro is overkill for me, but it’s going to be great for creative professionals among others.
What’s interested me the most about this new release is that it’s powered by Apple’s excellent M2 chip. That’s the same hardware found in this year’s MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, two of the best laptops that came out in 2022, and it promises to make the new iPad Pro extremely powerful and versatile.
Could it make me ditch my laptop for an iPad? Perhaps…
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The RTX 4090 is Nvidia's most powerful graphics card yet' (Nvidia)
Regular readers will know that my main area of expertise is computing and PC gaming, and it’s an exciting time in the world of components right now; okay, that might not sound particularly exciting, but stick with me…
Nvidia, which makes graphics cards, has had a bit of a rollercoaster of a month. It launched its uber-powerful RTX 4090 GPU, which blew us away with its raw performance, but it also had to ‘unlaunch’ its RTX 4080 12GB, after criticism was leveled at the company for labeling it as an RTX 4080 card, when the specifications made it more 4070-level.
This week I reported on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent visit to Taiwan, where he reportedly visited TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), which makes the chips Nvidia’s products use, in a bid to get to the front of the queue for its exciting, super-small three-nanometer chips. TSMC also makes chips for a lot of Nvidia’s competitors (including the aforementioned Apple M2 chip in the new iPads and MacBooks), and Nvidia clearly wants the company to prioritize its orders to help it get a headstart over its rivals.
While in Taiwan, Huang also reportedly visited a number of his Nvidia’s third-party partners, who may have been a little put out by the sudden ‘unlaunching’ of the RTX 4080 12GB, as many of these companies would have been in the process of making the cards.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at those meetings! While I’m sure they were a little awkward (Nvidia has promised to compensate partners for money spent on adverts, packaging and more for the now ex-GPU), I also hope things are smoothed out – I want more, and more powerful, graphics cards, and I want them now!
Leon Scott Kennedy will return to Salazar Castle in Resident Evil 4 Remake (Capcom)
Fun fact about me: I almost failed university thanks to Resident Evil 4.
I was doing pretty well in my studies, but in my third and final year my housemate came home one day with Resident Evil 4 for his GameCube. We popped the tiny disc into the console, and took turns playing through what was then the most violent, over-the-top and cheesy entry in the survival horror franchise. We stayed up all night playing it, and when the game ended, we started again. And then we played it again, and again… we were hooked.
Thankfully we both managed to wean ourselves off the game for long enough to actually do some studying, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the franchise. So I’m hugely excited about the news around the upcoming Resident Evil 4 Remake.
Capcom’s previous remakes of earlier Resident Evil games have been superb. Rather than simply boosting the graphics, the games have been rebuilt from the ground up, with new graphics, new gameplay and expanded storylines. And Capcom has managed to do all this while keeping everything that made the originals so good.
The thought of playing through Resident Evil 4 once more, and experiencing such a familiar game in such a new way, is something I can’t wait for. I just hope I don’t get too addicted this time – but if you never hear from me again, you’ll know why.
Apple is in danger of ruining the App Store experience (Shutterstock / BigTunaOnline)
As I mentioned earlier, I own an iPad, but I don’t spend that much time browsing Apple’s App Store. However, for those millions who have iPhones, the App Store is a regular destination – and some users aren’t happy with the tinkering Apple has been doing.
In a rather spicy opinion piece, Axel Metz bemoans the current state of the App Store, with Apple packing so many adverts into its pages that browsing for the apps and games you’re interested in is becoming a real chore.
I can sympathize with Axel’s frustrations. I’ve often called out Microsoft as it’s added ever more adverts to Windows 10 and Windows 11, and it looks like it’s doing the same thing with its updated Xbox interface.
Of course, adverts are essential, especially to help support publications and services that are free. TechRadar has adverts, and that allows us to employ talented writers like Axel.
But while adverts are necessary, and can be helpful, if they become too intrusive then they can drive potential customers away. Apple would do well to take notice of App Store users’ concerns.
RTX 4090 owners have shared images of melted cables online (Reggie_Gakil)
Yep, back to Nvidia. I told you the company has been having a bumpy ride of late, and a worrying report this week suggests that some adapter cables that connect its RTX 4090 GPU to a computer’s PSU (Power Supply Unit) are melting.
The RTX 4090 is an extremely powerful graphics card, and that means it’s extremely power-hungry as well, which means that some people with older PSUs need an adapter to make sure enough juice flows to the GPU.
It seems that issues with installing the adapter (the size of both the GPU and the adaptor can make fitting it a bit fiddly) mean that in some cases the pins aren’t seated properly, and this is causing the adapter to melt.
Obviously, this is a worrying development, and while we don’t know how widespread the problem is, I hope Nvidia is taking these reports seriously and looking into them – so far we’ve not had any official statement from the company.
An artist's impression of the latest chuck of space rock that's heading our way (Science Photo Library - ANDRZEJ WOJCICKI via Getty Images)
Regular readers will know that we like a good ‘asteroid heading for Earth’ story to end this newsletter, and perhaps humanity, on a high note, and after a few weeks of not ending this newsletter with some terrifying science news, I thought that in honor of Halloween I’d put something suitably scary in this slot.
I’m no scientist, but I’d rank that any "monstrously large" asteroid that’s hurtling towards us is a little bit more than "potentially hazardous" – but then I am a glass-half-smashed-by-space-rock kind of guy.
According to Live Science, the asteroid is around the height of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and is traveling at 52,500mph. By the time Halloween rolls round, it’ll be around 1.43 million miles from Earth – and while in layman’s terms that seems quite far away, Live Science helpfully reminds us that “by cosmic standards, this is a very slender margin.”
Still, hopefully it’ll pass us by without any issues, and I can instead scare myself on Halloween with some classic post-apocalyptic horror movies, rather than having to suffer through the actual apocalypse.
The Sign Off
That’s it for another week – there’s certainly stuff here to give Nvidia, Twitter users, and anyone who needs me to meet a deadline once Resident Evil 4 Remake gets launched, nightmares.
As a big fan of Halloween, I’m looking forward to the weekend. I went pumpkin picking last weekend with my daughter, and we found the biggest pumpkin in the field, so I may spend most of my time trying to carve the damn thing.
